


A Conversation with the Doctor

by cstull2014



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-30 17:25:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19407931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cstull2014/pseuds/cstull2014
Summary: What if "I really don't want to go" was the Tenth Doctors Last words to the Eleventh Doctor in "the Day of the Doctor". The Tenth and Eleventh Doctor get to have a chat about their lives with out having to explain the time vortex to their companions.





	A Conversation with the Doctor

“ _ Who knows?” _ The words were still ringing in the Doctor’s ears as he turned back to the impossible cup of soup painting. His mind was racing. The curator had left; Clara was in the TARDIS. He knew it had worked, that they had saved Gallifrey. But, for once, he didn’t know how to express  _ how _ he knew that they had succeeded, so he was glad to be alone. Knowing this, though, filled him with a desire to move forward, and yet he still felt as though something was holding him back. Some part of him, a part of his life, anchoring him to the moment. He knew he should be off to Trenzalore, but for some unknown reason, he felt like he was stuck right here, couldn’t move. 

The thoughts zipping through his head were cut short as the sound of the TARDIS landing reached his ears.  _ What was Clara up to? _ He turned but it wasn’t his TARDIS. The TARDIS belonged to his most recent face.  _ How was this possible? _ He had left; the discontinuity of the timelines should have forced him to forget. And yet here he was. The TARDIS had materialized, and almost immediately the Tenth Doctor's head popped out. With a cheeky grin, he said, “I really didn’t want to go.” 

Taken aback, the Doctor looked at his past self and remarked, “How are you here? You should have forgotten already.” 

“I believe I’m forgetting in reverse. I don’t know how we got into the dungeon, just that from then on, I remember everything. But it’s fading quickly. I threw the TARDIS in reverse just now because you never answered my question. Where in 400 years do you move on? How have you forgotten that we tried to destroy Gallifrey? You are off to Trenzalore, I know, but how?” Said his Tenth face.

“We do not have much time then. Let’s talk in your TARDIS in case Clara comes back out,” the Doctor said.

They moment they stepped into the TARDIS, it took off, and they rushed to the console to see what was going on. 

“The autopilot was definitely turned off! I didn’t want to go through the Sontarans again if it went a bit haywire,” the Tenth Doctor said quickly.

“Oooh, I remember that,” the Doctor empathized. 

The Tenth Doctor didn’t have a chance to say anything as the TARDIS landed and they both jumped to the door. Outside, there was a vast planet landscape of rolling desert hills with small yellow and purple shrubbery-type plants dotted into the distance. A single, lonely butterfly was swirling and dancing about nearby, carefree.

Their minds began to come up with an answer for all of this, and together they started to explain, in unison, “This is Argoth. This is a fixed point in ti…”

They looked at each other, like some kind of mirror. Explaining was pointless; each knew this little butterfly was destined to not get stepped on. A fixed point that allowed intelligent life to occur everywhere in the universe. The Timelords had pinpointed this solitary little lady way back billions of years ago as the point in time where the timeline of the universe was set. It was the first fixed point. All chaos led up to it, and for billions of years after, time itself was able to tack down its intermingled mess of randomness into some semblance of reality. The Doctors always found this type of thing difficult for their companions to understand, as the technical terminology in Gallifreyan was far too complex for human minds to comprehend, a hot mess of babbling. This point in time, though, was almost frozen in a loop. The butterfly would land on a plant and help pollinate it, and this single act so far back led to the Timelords rising up and the course of the universe being set in motion. 

So as the Doctors looked at each other, they realized that, for a moment, the running had stopped. The Tenth Doctor did not have to run away from his sadness and guilt. Here, his memory of trying to save Gallifrey was locked in and he was at peace. It wouldn’t last. The minute he left Argoth, it would be gone. The Eleventh Doctor could stop running away from his destination, had the time to process that he was about to go on his final adventure.

“So,” the Tenth Doctor finally said. “Here we are stuck in time, able to talk for once, you and I, without the universe exploding. Of course, I won’t remember. I will have to go on living in regret, not knowing for four hundred years what happens. But how do  _ you _ forget? I run from that regret everyday.” 

The Doctor looked at himself. Something he didn’t normally do. He never questioned why he was the man who forgot.  _ He was old, was that not enough? _ He was tired and he was ready for that last adventure, but he still seemed rooted here, frozen in time looking at who he once was and struggling to truly remember. 

“It began with your regeneration into me,” he started. He didn’t know where he was going with this, but it felt right. Talking was what he was good at, and where he was going usually came out eventually. “Your last moments,” he continued, “were alone. You were able to love again. You loved so many, and yet, in the end, you were alone. You were scared of where you had to go. And you just said it, you didn’t want to go.”

He paused here, starting to learn why he was the last regeneration, why his face was the one to be the end for the Doctor. The Tenth Doctor looked at him; his eyes appeared young, and his face, too. Not as young as his face, but still young. 

The Tenth Doctor broke the silence, “I’ve been running from who I was. I’ve been running from being alone. Because you’re it. I won’t want to go at the end because I won’t be ready for the last step. You forget so you can move forward. You forget not out of lack of guilt, but to be able to face the end. I don’t want to be alone, but  _ you _ will have to  _ face it _ alone.”

The Doctor continued his thoughts for him, “I am the youngest face for the oldest mind. I am the last face we will ever have. I forget to be able to prepare myself for Trenzalore. I forget all of the love and the regrets. I will remember trying to save Gallifrey to forget destroying it. Your burden is regret. Mine is living while I forget, while I move toward that fixed point. That place you must never go but I am destined to arrive at. Your carefree outward attitude but inner struggle made me. Here at the end of our time, I can finally forget and move on to Trenzalore.”

“You realise, though, that you don’t have to go just yet. Our timeline is frozen here. The moment we leave this place, the time vortex will remove my memory and push you toward Trenzalore, but for right now, we don’t have to run. I don’t have to run from regret. You can remember all of it. We can finally go for a swim in the pool we have, but never use,” the Tenth Doctor said with a grin.

But the Doctor knew he couldn’t. He knew it was time to start moving forward again. He was ready and excited to get on with the last adventure. To go where no other Doctor dared to go. He was the Doctor to end it. To finish it. His cycle was up. His time was up. His many faces and and journeys had been leading him to this. The last and final chapter in his life. It was time to get back to Clara, and to begin the end.

The TARDIS landed back in the museum and the Doctor hopped out. Looking back, he saw the Tenth Doctor for the final time. He was so similar, young and always running, and yet so different. The door closed, and the Doctor was alone once again,  _ Gallifrey Falls No More _ hanging on the wall. That story was done. It had been saved. He didn’t know where, but it was saved. He didn’t need to forget any longer. He didn’t need to regret. He was ready, finally, to move forward and begin the journey to Trenzalore. He jumped back into his TARDIS to see Clara waiting at the console. 

“What took you so long, you clever boy?” she asked, laughing. “I’m ready to go.”

He smiled that strange Doctor smile, and with one fluid, practiced motion, moved to the controls and said, “Are you ready for another adventure, or to go back home?”

“Well, what do you think?” she retorted.

_ “Clara sometimes asks me if I dream. Of course I dream, I tell her. Everybody dreams. But what do you dream about, she'll ask. The same thing everybody dreams about, I tell her. I dream about where I'm going. She always laughs at that. But you're not going anywhere, you're just wandering about. That's not true. Not any more. I have a new destination. My journey is the same as yours, the same as anyone’s. It's taken me so many years, so many lifetimes, but at last I know where I'm going. Where I've always been going. Home, the long way round.” _


End file.
